I'm writing for me....And I'm publishing for money.

 

Even for AI at this point I do think you get out of it what you put in. If I'm a reader and I know nothing about story and I just tell it what I want, I'm probably not going to get anything good out of it. It's going to have to have an awesome framework built around it that can take what I tell it and turn that into something good, and that is where an app might have an advantage. But once you get to a certain level, readers get things they didn't even know they wanted from you when they read your book. That's just like what PJ said. I mean, he had a great point in the fact that some of the best works are the things that hit right, but you absolutely did not realize that was what you wanted.

Getting that kind of thing from AI? I think that's going to continue to be be miles more difficult than what all the cheerleaders seem to think is going to be coming out of AI in the near future. Hell, even the best authors can't do that every time they write a book. With AI, the consistency from book to book may not be there so it may be a lot harder for people using them to create a single author's catalog in a way that creates true fans. To get that kind of consistency, that will involve someone in the background really curating the work. It's not going to be these pseudo authors who type in "write me a 50 chapter book about a guy and a girl who fall in love on a bridge, and I like fake relationship tropes and enemies to lovers."

Also, let me just throw one of the major players in AI generated writing's discord server under the bus here, but I came away from a couple of those channels realizing that there is no competition from people who don't already know writing. It just isn't there. The things I saw people grappling with were the most basic, the most cringe-worthy aspects of all of us when we were just learning how to write. And you cannot get a story from AI that is publishable if you don't know what publishable is. Maybe some of those people will learn how to write books during the whole process of trying to get a decent book out of AI, I don't know, but they're not our competition now, that's for sure.

I do happen to agree with Timothy that the crap will sink. The only difference between this and get-rich-quick-pseudo-authors' previous attempts to just put a lot of crap out and hope something makes a sale is the volume that's possible with AI generation (and by crap I'm not talking about subjective definitions of what's good and not in story I'm talking about stuff that has no cohesive plot that has no story that might be paragraphs that just really have no connection to each other at all, because I think there are no truly objective ways of determining what is good writing and bad outside of whether or not the story can actually be understood by the reader, because writing is communication). Something will have to be done about that. Because it is nearly every person's dream to get rich quick with no work or effort, and there are a lot of those people out there side eyeing AI now thinking it is the answer.

Anyway, good thoughts. I agree with a lot of what's been said in the thread, but I do think it's going to be impossible to differentiate. We want people to be able to self-report but can't trust that system. We want the system to tell us when we need to check one box or the other, but it's an ever-changing world with a fastly developing technology. I don't think it's possible without a completely binary choice.

Saying we can prioritize both is just rationalization. I think it stems from not being comfortable with either the straight business side of things (selling sh*t on the internet) or the Artist side (perceived pretentiousness). At the end of the day, we are all Artists - we create stuff. And we are also craftsmen selling sh*t on the internet.

But muddying the waters between these goals (profit v Art) is typically bad for the Art, and even worse for sales.

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Also, the underlying motivation is different. Artists are seeking validation. Business folks are seeking financial reward. One makes you feel good about yourself, the other pays the rent.

Not the same.

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Also also, innovation is a different beast altogether.

Your set up is misleading. You're forgetting something important.

A self-publisher is running two businesses. Even if they don't claim they are for tax purposes. Artist. Publisher.

Artist - can choose to follow art only, money only, or maximize both to the best of their ability using whatever split they prefer.

Publisher - follow the money, or follow the art. Be bottom-dollar focused, or be focused on their position in the world of literature. This last one is fundamentally harder than any other option for a self-publisher. Probably shouldn't be a self-publisher if that is what you're most interested in, but hey, there have been worse businesses that fail faster, so who knows.

As for me, I write what I want, how I want, I make my covers how I want, even if it doesn't fit trends, because I like being in control and doing things my way, but when it comes time to publish, I am thinking of the money. I have no interest in readers for the sake of being read.

Validation? What a joke.

If it weren't for the money, I'd trunk my finished stories and move on to the next. Or I'd just read other people's books and watch TV because it's easier.

I had quit writing anything but fan fiction when found self publishing. (I started out in original fiction and found fan fiction much later.) I wanted to make a living writing, youthful ideas and all that, but went to a con and pitched to some editors and agents and realized I absolutely hated the process. Came home, buried the manuscripts instead of sending in the requested fulls, and moved on. Then, some 3 years or so later, I came across something about self-publishing.

I realized it would let me write again because I'd have a reason (money! money is a great reason to write), so I started self publishing. :D

I could try to sell what I wrote and not have to work for someone else. But if I couldn't write what I wanted I'd have rather done something else.

Technically, I guess this falls into your doing it for the art category, but if it's because I have something to say I guess the only person I want to hear it is me. But again, I think you have that all mixed up.

I find reader expectations burdensome. I do love it when they like something I've published, but I don't change anything for them. Only me. If I like it, I've succeeded.

I guess I'm lucky in that I have a low-brow taste and seem to like the things some other people like (but not the majority of people or I'd be making a lot more money than I do).

So, am I writing as an artist would or for the money? I'm writing for me. Is that even art? And I'm publishing for money. If they are mutually exclusive, then there's a fundamental flaw in the way you've presented your argument. You are treating writers and publishers as the same entity just because they're being done by the same *person*.

Up to 24 1 stars but it's still up. I don't know, readers might get it with so low a ranking if Amazon doesn't take it down. I can't believe it has the same title.

If AI is used to write a book, it needs to be added as a badge by the title on all retailers. That's been my opinion all along.

I see AI and ghostwriting as pretty much the same.  Why put our name on something we didn't write??

At the end of the day, be a publisher...not an author.  An author WRITES.  If we're not writing, we're not the author.